Lit celebrates its breakthrough 15 years on

Feb. 26, 2014

Updated 6:28 p.m.

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Lit (from left to right: Bassist Kevin Baldes, guitarist Jeremy Popoff, vocalist A. Jay Popoff and drummer Nathan Walker) celebrate the 15th anniversary of its sophomore album "A Place in the Sun" on Friday at House of Blues Anaheim. PHOTO: KEVIN BALDES

Lit (vocalist A.Jay Popoff, left, and guitarist Jeremy Popoff, right) open for No Doubt at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine on Aug. 5, 2000 during the tour cycle for it's sophomore album, "A Place in the Sun." FILE PHOTO: ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Lit (from left to right: Bassist Kevin Baldes, guitarist Jeremy Popoff, vocalist A. Jay Popoff and drummer Nathan Walker) celebrate the 15th anniversary of its sophomore album "A Place in the Sun" on Friday at House of Blues Anaheim. PHOTO: KEVIN BALDES

Lit (from left to right: Bassist Kevin Baldes, guitarist Jeremy Popoff, vocalist A. Jay Popoff and drummer Nathan Walker) celebrate the 15th anniversary of its sophomore album "A Place in the Sun" on Friday at House of Blues Anaheim. PHOTO: KEVIN BALDES

In 1999, Fullerton rock band Lit was on top of the world. The quartet – brothers A. Jay and Jeremy Popoff, the group’s respective frontman and guitarist, plus bassist Kevin Baldes and drummer Allen Shellenberger – had spent the better part of a decade building a solid following across Southern California. They performed any chance they could and worked odd jobs to cover the cost of their debut, Tripping the Light Fantastic, from two years earlier. And still they got passed on repeatedly by every major label.

But things finally paid off in 1998 when Lit signed with RCA Records after a series of industry bigwigs got their hands on demos for what would become the band’s platinum-selling sophomore album, A Place in the Sun, spearheaded by the radio smash “My Own Worst Enemy,” which shot to No. 1 on Billboard’s modern rock chart.

“At the time we were very confident and very broke,” Jeremy says of the months leading up to the deal, as we kick back with his brother in a booth for brunch at the Slidebar Rock-N-Roll Kitchen, the bar and restaurant the elder Popoff owns in downtown Fullerton.

“We were on the verge of something happening. Our popularity locally kept getting bigger, so we were selling out clubs and every show, but it just wasn’t translating into record deals, video shoots and songs on KROQ.”

They had showcased tracks for label scouts – including ones that would go on to become hits, like “Miserable” – at the Viper Room, where the brothers recall one major A&R guy just walking out mid-set.

“It was in the middle of the afternoon, too, so when he opened the door to leave, it let all the light into the little, dark Viper Room,” A. Jay adds with a laugh. “What a total vibe-killer.”

The Popoffs can look back and laugh at those early struggles. They also get to reminisce fondly about one of the raddest times of their lives as they prepare to celebrate the 15th anniversary of their breakthrough by playing it in full for the first time ever at a sold-out show Friday night at House of Blues Anaheim.

Most of the album has been performed live at one point or another, but there are a few cuts, such as the title track and “The Best Is Yet to Come Undone,” that have only been played a handful of times.

“We used to do some crazy changes that seem to come out of left field,” Jeremy says. “There’s an innocence to it that I love. It blows my mind when we’re rehearsing and I’ll look at Kevin like, ‘What the (bleep)? We did that? Really?’ But back then, it just worked.”

Following the release of the album on Feb. 23, 1999, the band was off and running for the next two years solid, performing hundreds of shows – sometimes two gigs in different cities or states in a single day. They landed a three-week stint on the Vans Warped Tour that summer and opening slots on outings supporting Garbage, the Offspring and No Doubt, the last of which Lit cut short its own headlining tour to join.

They performed during the second day of the infamous Woodstock ’99 and also played Angel Stadium during KROQ’s sole Weenie Roast there in 2000. They were featured on all the late-night talk shows, its videos were among the most popular on MTV’s Total Request Live and the guys got to try their acting chops on an episode of Pamela Anderson’s V.I.P. series. (That meeting led to the Playboy bombshell agreeing to star in the video for “Miserable.”)

All of that now seems like a fantastic fuzzy blur, they say.

“Looking back, I wish I would have maybe slowed down mentally a bit and enjoyed every little moment along the way,” A. Jay says. “So much happened so fast, and at the time it felt like it was going to be that way forever. We were living our dream.”

Of all the milestones, they agree that hearing “My Own Worst Enemy” played for the very first time on KROQ was by far their biggest personal accomplishment, comparing it to a similar scene in the Tom Hanks film That Thing You Do!

“It was just like that – that movie is absolutely correct,” A. Jay says. He was still living with his parents at the time. Baldes had come over when the song suddenly came on the radio. The pair started tackling each other and screaming in the living room.

Jeremy was with Shellenberger – the two shared a Fullerton apartment at the time – and had been listening to KROQ since friends had called to say they’d heard the tune as a “new music” offering.

“We were monitoring it all day,” Jeremy remembers, “and finally it came on – and Al and I freaked out. That was the first week of January ’99. We had come back from Laughlin where we’ve spent New Year’s with friends every year, and we were planning on relaxing, maybe spending a couple grand of our advance to do something fun. But it was like, ‘Nope. Get to work, kids.’”

With the arrival of third album Atomic in late 2001, things began to slow down. The music industry, particularly at the major-label level, was changing dramatically in the wake of Napster, and after 9/11 the mood in America also darkened.

Lit was released from RCA the next year but has continued to release new music: a self-titled reintroduction in 2004 followed by their 2012 effort The View from the Bottom. The guys also lost their brother Shellenberger, who died in August 2009 from a malignant brain tumor before reaching 40. Drummer Nate Walker filled in for him during his treatments and continues to perform with the band.

Five years since that devastating setback, Lit is still forging on. Things may be different now, but the coming anniversary gig is a reminder of pretty epic times, they insist.

“It’s cool to look back because when you’re a kid and you dream of becoming a rock star – we did those things,” A. Jay says. “Now all of that just doesn’t happen and new bands are out there just trying to survive. What’s the dream anymore? Getting a record deal? No. You also don’t shoot $300,000 music videos to see yourself on MTV. I just feel lucky that we were able to be a part of all of that at the very end, that crazy lifestyle that just doesn’t exist anymore.”

“People say when you do something like play an album from front to back for a 15th anniversary, its nostalgia,” Jeremy adds. “But who wouldn’t be nostalgic about 1999? It was a great year for everyone.

“It would have been heartbreaking to have been a band for 10 years, work so hard, have made all of those sacrifices and then get a record deal from a label that makes no money selling actual records and there’s no stores to sell them in anyway. It’s like showing up to a party late with a case of beer and everyone’s already gone. So yeah, 1999, it was a … blast.”

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